Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-01-16-Speech-1-131"
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"en.20060116.17.1-131"2
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Madam President, just to take up on the last point, I attach very great importance to encouraging and facilitating parliamentary involvement in trade matters. This is a relationship which is very important to me, and I hope that our debate this evening is a further demonstration of that. I am determined to keep these close and regular contacts between us going in the future. Indeed, as I look round the Chamber this evening I see that many of us were in Hong Kong together. This is a sort of early reunion and a good time to take stock.
More generally, the outcome of Hong Kong leaves us with everything still to play for, and nothing in the final text prevents us from continuing to seek the kind of ambition and balance that have been our watchwords throughout this negotiation.
After Hong Kong we can still continue to seek a round that is economically meaningful and pro-development. That means both more market access and stronger international trade rules for all. Having said that, I will not hide from you that the road ahead will be tough for a number of reasons. Firstly, there is a risk of some front-loading of negotiations on agriculture and NAMA – industrial goods – and then back-loading negotiations on services, rules and GIs. This has to be minimised.
Secondly, a direct relationship has been established between market access for industrial goods and agricultural goods, which some WTO members might be tempted to interpret as necessitating reduced new market access for industrial goods, as opposed to new market access for agricultural goods. We will be very vigilant on this.
Thirdly, and perhaps more fundamentally, it was not evident in Hong Kong that other important partners are ready yet to take the hard decisions, to make the offers and the contributions that will be needed if this round is to end on a successful note in a year’s time or beyond. Until a sense of mutual responsibility and flexibility – without which we cannot make the trade-offs or the bargains needed to bring this round to a successful conclusion – is demonstrated by all the key negotiating partners, we will not be able to look forward to an early conclusion of this round.
The dust is still settling and we are still evaluating our next moves with a cool head. As I have said, today’s debate will be a contribution to the analysis that we are undertaking.
I want to share with you some further thoughts on this. We should be adamant in having the principle of the single undertaking respected. That is central to this round and to how the WTO works. We should not abandon that principle. We should not accept further feet-dragging either in services, geographical indications or in rule-making areas, and the same is true for industrial goods. Above all we need to engage with our partners to gauge the real level of ambition and see if our ambitious vision of the round is genuinely shared by them. I really hope this is the case. Europe could settle, reluctantly and grudgingly, at the end of the day, for a minimalist outcome. We could do so if that is what the rest of the world wants. But I have to say to you that it would be a great shame, a great pity and a great loss to do so. It would not help our economies or others’ growth and employment, and it would not help reduce global poverty. That remains the aim of this round. So I will be engaging vigorously with all my partners in the weeks ahead to see if the negotiating material and the energy are still there for an ambitious and balanced outcome.
However, I am not inclined to sacrifice quality for speed. I know that the United States Trade Promotion Authority will expire in mid-2007, and I will do what I can to achieve ambitious outcomes within the timeframes that we agreed to work to in Hong Kong, but not if that means sacrificing European interests or those of weak and vulnerable developing countries, which also need to gain tangibly from this round. This round is not just about competitive, large-scale agricultural exporters but about the generality of developing countries, and their interests cannot be sacrificed for the sake of speed.
Importantly, we should be unambiguous in stating our aims, in particular towards the generality of developing countries. We should be more active in our bilateral and regional contacts and indicate clearly what we are requesting from our counterparts in the WTO and what we are not requesting or expecting. For example, that for the vast majority of developing countries we can give a lot, but seek nothing or very little in return. This would avoid the misunderstandings – some genuine and some, I am afraid, wilfully encouraged – that can grow in the minds of some that this is a sort of extreme cantonist round in which we are trying to extract ounces of flesh from our negotiating partners who are not in a position to pay into this round. That is not the case; it has never been the case and it will not be the case in future.
More generally, the development arguments need to be restated. Reducing barriers to trade drives economic growth. It is not an unfair price to be paid by imposition on developing countries. At times in Hong Kong I felt that some developing country partners were simply not convinced that the progressive, properly supported opening of markets is good for development at all and that, instead, the panacea for all the developing world’s illnesses was simply the tearing-apart of the common agricultural policy. Of course, agricultural liberalisation should take place and needs to catch up, but this round is not an agriculture-only round. Since agriculture is less than 5% of world trade in goods and services, it is obvious that the biggest gains of this round lay elsewhere, not only for the European Union but in particular for developing countries, which would benefit immensely from expanding their trade with each other where the bulk of that trade takes place, which is in industrial goods, not agriculture. So the case for a strong South-South dimension of the round remains convincing.
I fully acknowledge the importance of granting developing countries the necessary flexibilities, and we need to explain and stress this all the time in Europe’s approach. All our proposals include special and differential treatment which, in the case of the least-developed countries and the most vulnerable countries, basically means that they will not be requested to make any liberalising effort in this round. However, the European Community is not going to sign up to an OECD round in which the G20 group of emerging economies simply sits back and enjoys the concessions made by the developed world without much, or indeed any, gain for the poorest and most needy developing countries. That is not sellable across Europe; it should not be sellable across the world.
You asked me to give my evaluation of the results of the Hong Kong meeting and say what conclusions can be drawn from it. I want to do that. You have also asked me to set out my views on the next steps that should be taken. I will give you my preliminary views, but I also want the Members of this House to give me their opinions and reflections in turn, in order to shape my own views. Therefore, my reflection, which is very topical and an active process, means that this debate comes at just the right time. I am going to meet other Members here in Strasbourg tomorrow.
Finally, I should like to talk about your role and contribution in the months to come. Clearly, the outcome of a negotiation must be sold and
to that conclusion, our policies and positions need to be explained as well. This is especially true in open, democratic societies like our own. I greatly appreciated your opinions and your help in Hong Kong. I thought we really were in a real sense working together as Team Europe, even if on specific issues there were nuances and certain policy differences between us. I would like your continued help in explaining not only to your own electorates but also to our WTO partners that the European constituency remains ambitious for the DDA, that we are deeply committed to its development values, but we will not be able to settle for an outcome that has nothing in it to enhance European growth or competitiveness or that can help us in creating more jobs to offset those that are lost in Europe as agricultural production falls away.
In trade negotiations you get what you pay for. Europe will not be ready to pay for a round that offers nothing new on industrial market access, services, GIs or other rules that lend strength to the multilateral way of managing our international affairs. If there are no advances or real improvements in those areas, then we are not going to pay and be the sole banker of this round.
These are my preliminary thoughts. I have already started discussions with my main counterparts, and the forthcoming Davos meeting will be the first opportunity to further compare notes with trade ministers. We will continue reassessing and fine-tuning our negotiating position in the light of the reactions and comments we get from other WTO members, but mostly, of course, from the Council and from you. I will again outline my approach in a trade policy speech next Monday, 23 January, in Berlin, after I have heard your views tonight.
I cannot pretend that the Hong Kong conference was a staggering success: it was not. According to the WTO Director-General, Mr Lamy, we moved from 55% to 60% achievement of the round. That was pretty small incremental progress, and it certainly is a very expensive 5%. If you consider how many people were in Hong Kong and how much it cost them to get there and stay there – not to mention the sleep deprivation whilst there! – it was indeed a very costly 5%. However, it was enough to avoid failure and to prevent the DDA train from derailing. So it was a good investment; it was worth it.
We have to bear in mind that expectations had been significantly lowered before we arrived in Hong Kong. We were not expecting breakthroughs and we were not disappointed. Modest incremental progress was the best that could be expected and that is what happened.
As for the European Union, we ourselves made the best out of what was at times a very difficult situation. When I say ‘we’, I mean all of us – the Commission, Parliament and the Council. It must be said – and I wish to place on record my gratitude for it – that the support for, and the high level of trust and confidence that was placed in, Europe’s negotiators was of immense importance, value and encouragement to us. It was important to our collective European credibility and I believe it will be equally important in the months to come.
At Hong Kong we found ourselves at times under very carefully orchestrated political pressure either to concede further unilateral concessions or to accept blame for failure. In the event, we did neither: we did not give unilateral concessions, nor were we subsequently blamed.
Nonetheless, we made an important contribution, which was recognised as such, by accepting 2013 as the date for the final elimination of all agricultural export subsidies. In doing so we did not cross our red lines; we remained united and we emerged with both credit and credibility. That is not a negligible achievement. Europe was firm and reasonable and that is how I should like to characterise what I intend to be our future role and performance: firm and reasonable.
One important achievement in Hong Kong was agreement on the development package, which was made possible by the determined pressure we had placed on other developed countries in the months prior to Hong Kong. Still, I should have liked the United States, Canada and Japan to follow us all the way down our ‘Everything but Arms’ road, and go for an all-country, all-product, duty-free, quota-free approach, as we ourselves have granted to the least-developed countries.
Ninety-seven per cent – not one hundred per cent, as we in Europe offer – is a major step forward. It seems generous, but it will actually allow developed countries to shield some key products that are of importance to a number of LDCs and I regret that. Similarly, we made progress on cotton subsidies, but the final outcome was, again, disappointing in respect of the domestic subsidies operated in the United States."@en1
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